Bariani Race Report: 35+ 4's By Scott F.

Date: 3/27/2011
Race: Bariani RR, M35 Cat 4
Field: ~60
Teammates: Christian
Place: 4th

After a week of minimal riding, I wasn’t sure what to expect today with myself or the weather. Miles, Christian and I drove out to Bariani for an 11:05 start. Upon arrival, we walked to the start - finish line to cheer on our fellow CoreTechs members who would be wrapping up their 8:00 race. What surprised me were the number of riders walking across the finish line with flat tires, or just abandoning the race in general. What had we signed up for !?!?!?!

After chit chatting with the other club members, we went back to the car to get ready for our race, talk strategy, and warm up. Before we knew it, we were scrambling to the start line for our race. As Christian and I rolled to the staging area, we were hurried to the back of the pack that was just about to be sent off. Yep, CoreTechs Cycling was representing by bringing up the rear in style.

We had four laps at 10 miles per lap. The course has one leg with a tail wind, two legs with a strong cross wind, and one leg with a pretty steady headwind. The first lap was a pretty quick pace, or maybe that was because we were bringing up the rear and jockeying for better position.

Second lap was uneventful, just trying to find the groove and settle in. As we came around for the third lap, the pack was separating and we were down to 30 riders. Final lap, we were a group of maybe 20 and had a sizable lead over any chasers behind us.

A few riders made an attempt to break away, and given the strong winds with a few rolling climbs ahead, we let them go thinking they would come back into the fold soon enough. As we hit the base of the final “climb” the moto official announced they had a 25 second lead. Christian and I attacked, and brought one other rider with us. Now we were a group of three, chasing the lead group and putting distance on the remaining competitors. I was under the impression that five riders were ahead of us, and didn’t want to burn all of my matches to bridge the gap and then go into a final sprint of 8. The three of us worked together taking pulls, and lined up for the final sprint.

After finishing the race, turned out only three riders were ahead of us. The other two were lapped riders that were caught by the breakaway group. I ended up 4th for the day.

The field was full of teams with large showings: Pen Velo had 9, Rio Strada had 7, Audi had several. Christian and I had a fun race, rode smart, and finished in the top 10. Not bad for a team of two, that started literally dead last.

Thanks for reading-
Scott